


Remember, remember.

by deathlei



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Apathetic!Sasuke, Canon Divergence, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Onesided!NaruSasu, Semi AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 05:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7495251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathlei/pseuds/deathlei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hokage-sama.”</p><p>His voice was hoarse, rough from disuse and painfully neutral. From his lips, the words had sounded like defeat.</p><p>Angst, semi AU, canon divergent, Onesided NaruSasu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember, remember.

**Author's Note:**

> Another quick drabble. Hope you enjoy...

“Naruto-ku—Hokage-sama!”

Lee burst out, green spandex stretching obscenely as he rushed through the door of Naruto’s office. From where he lounged against a sofa in the corner, Kiba snickered, the action followed by a wide and wholly unattractive yawn as he leafed through a stack of reports. Naruto greeted his enthusiastic visitor with a half-hearted grin, nodding absently as the older shinobi launched into an epic depiction of his latest escapade.

Like most of his friends, Lee had not quite come to terms with Naruto’s change in status, and as such remained quite undecided on how to address the him. Now, Naruto had made it very clear the day of his inauguration that he cared little for official titles — and having said that, he had left it to each of his acquaintances to decide how to address him.

Of all his associates, there had been several surprising decisions. But of course, there had really only been one that had mattered.

The day of his inauguration had been somewhere in the middle of Sasuke’s twenty-seventh month of house arrest. Having been back in Konoha for a little over two years, the Uchiha had yet to say a word to anyone. When Sasuke had woken in a hospital bed, a week after Naruto had found him curled over Itachi’s dead body, he had been utterly unresponsive.

During those initial few months he had spent back in the village, the man had been subject to countless forms of interrogation. Half a year in and still the most they had gotten out of him had been a recollection of his years away and a handful of pained noises.

 

Naruto had been livid.

 

When finally he had been allowed to see the last Uchiha — his rival, his best friend, his _everything —_ all Sasuke could do was sit before him like a lifeless doll as he screamed his frustration to the air around them. That first time, he had snarled out his anger, and when he could take it no longer he had lashed out and tried to hit the sightless man. Anything to get a reaction out of the motionless figure. Sakura had cried as she held him back, fighting back messy sobs as she restrained him with her surprising strength. Their visit had been cut short, and Naruto had been banned from setting foot anywhere near the convict for a month.

 

After that, his visits were often short and nondescript, filled with pointless chatter and dull silences, and for a while he had stopped going. It had taken him two months and a serious beating from Sakura to haul him out of his uncharacteristic depression, and yet when he resumed his visits Sasuke appeared unmoved. Still, he had persevered — but even then nothing had changed.

 

A year later he had been formally appointed as the new Hokage.

When Naruto had turned up on Sasuke’s doorstep later that evening, the man was seated at his kitchen table, blinded and motionless as always. Naruto stood silently in the entryway for a few minutes, simply staring at his old friend. Then Sasuke had turned to face him.

And for the first time in almost three years, he had spoken.

“Hokage-sama.”

His voice was hoarse, rough from disuse and painfully neutral.

 

From his lips, the words had sounded like defeat.

 

“What did you say?”

Naruto had asked, voice calm and low and dangerous as he stared down at the older man. Sasuke had merely tilted his head slowly — everything he did these days was slow, painfully _slow_ — and said no more.

Naruto pulled back a fist and hit him square across the jaw, watching as Sasuke offered no resistance, head snapping easily to the side and body twisting with the motion. He had stood, rigid and gulping air like a fool before his best friend — and watched as he had simply smiled at him. It was small and quiet and utterly defeated, and Naruto could take it no longer. He had turned without a word, slamming the door and leaving Sasuke to the silence of an empty house.

Hours later, he lay quiet in his room, eyes fixed on _their_ photograph. Team seven. He was stricken with grief, a strange mix of loss and longing and pure devastation. He had entertained the thought of the old Sasuke being long-gone before, but to him it had never seemed so _real_ , so _possible_. In the feint grey of early dawn, he had let himself give in to a crushing wave of despair, because he knew there was nothing he could do for someone who didn’t want to be saved.

That morning had been a blur. He had risen when sleep had ceased to be an option, and dressed quickly and quietly. He could barely remember his first walk into office, had only a vague recollection of greeting the guards as he entered the building. He had immersed himself in administrative paperwork, mind not truly with him as he fumbled through his newfound duties. By evening Naruto was still unprepared for his daily visit, and as he trudged his way across town he had braced himself for a repeat reception. When he had opened the door, he had been met with the same, silent Sasuke, unmoving and unseeing on the small grey sofa.

“Sasuke…”

He had called, waiting tense for a repetition of what had broken him. It never came. 

Over the next few weeks, Sasuke had slipped back into his self-imposed silence, growing steadily thinner and paler. It had been all Naruto could do between work and bouts of avid determination and aching depression to keep Sasuke alive, and even then it had only been barely. Sasuke’s deterioration continued, and steadily he become less apathetic and more despondent. The shift had been subtle, but definitely there, and Naruto had known that somehow it was all his fault.

 

* * *

 

“Have you ever thought it might be time to let go?”

Sakura had said to him softly, another three years later. Naruto had lifted his pen gently from the the page, setting it neatly to the side. Sasuke’s continuing expenses had been brought up in the last meeting, and several more before that, and Naruto knew it wouldn’t be the last time.

“Of course,”

He replied quietly, sitting back in his seat and staring at his desk through clouded eyes. There hadn’t been a single day this past year he hadn’t thought of it, hadn’t had the almost unstoppable urge to give up and give in.

“Of course I have,”

He whispered, and in those words he found a strange, perverse comfort. Because Naruto would never give up, and Sasuke would never give in.


End file.
